Literature and exhibited

Literature

P. Sutton, in the catalogue of the exhibition, Masters of Seventeenth Century Dutch Genre Painting, Philadelphia, Museum of Art and elsewhere, 1984, p. 306, under no. 101, note 2.

Lot Essay

Though perhaps better-known as a painter of interior genre scenes, Hendrick Sorgh, the son of market tradesmen, also made a speciality of depicting outdoor markets. In doing so, he was continuing in the tradition developed almost a century earlier by Pieter Aertsen and Joachim Beuckelaer, whose works Sorgh would have been familiar with from his time spent in Antwerp training in the studio of David Teniers II. If those early examples carried specific allegorical or moralistic messages, Sorgh's message was probably none other than to attest to the abundance of produce offered at the weekly markets in Dutch cities. His adoption of the subject in the early 1650s coincided with the new interest in cityscape painting, and Sorgh's native city of Rotterdam provided the backdrop to these works.